Democrats must agree to fund President Trump’s border wall if they want insurers to receive Obamacare payments in a new spending bill, Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Friday.
“We’d offer them $1 of [cost-sharing reduction] payments for $1 of wall payments right now,” said the Office of Management and Budget director said on Bloomberg TV. “That is the offer we have given to our Democratic colleagues.”
Congress and the White House need to reach a spending deal before funding for the federal government expires April 28, which would prompt a shutdown.
Mulvaney said what Democrats do next could determine the tenor for the next few years.
“If the Democrats come back to us and say we can’t do that but we can do this, [then] that is a really good sign in the short term and the long term,” he said. “If they simply walk away and choose to not participate in the discussions, that is a bad sign not only in the short term but over the next several years.”
Mulvaney said that it appears likely that Congress will pass a short-term continuing resolution by the end of next week while a longer deal is negotiated.
But a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York didn’t appear open to the idea.
“The White House gambit to hold hostage healthcare for millions of Americans, in order to force American taxpayers to foot the bill for a wall that the president said would be paid for by Mexico, is a complete non-starter,” said spokesman Matt House.
Trump this month warned that he could withhold the cost-sharing payments to get Democrats to support Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.
However, Democrats have been cool to the idea of funding the wall and say that Trump could severely hurt insurance markets if he doesn’t make the payments to insurers.
Obamacare insurers are required under the law to lower the copays and deductibles of low-income customers, with the federal government reimbursing them.
Insurers have been pleading with the Trump administration to tell them if the payments will be made in 2018, as they have to submit rates for the year in June.
If insurers don’t get the reimbursements, they have threatened to leave the individual market altogether or significantly raise premiums.
